lace, the impostors were up and were working by
the light of over sixteen candles. The people could see that they were
very busy making the Emperor's new clothes ready. They pretended they
were taking the cloth from the loom, cut with huge scissors in the
air, sewed with needles without thread, and then said at last, 'Now the
clothes are finished!'

The Emperor came himself with his most distinguished knights, and each
impostor held up his arm just as if he were holding something, and said,
'See! here are the breeches! Here is the coat! Here the cloak!' and so
on.

'Spun clothes are so comfortable that one would imagine one had nothing
on at all; but that is the beauty of it!'

'Yes,' said all the knights, but they could see nothing, for there was
nothing there.

'Will it please your Majesty graciously to take off your clothes,' said
the impostors, 'then we will put on the new clothes, here before the
mirror.'

The Emperor took off all his clothes, and the impostors placed
themselves before him as if they were putting on each part of his new
clothes which was ready, and the Emperor turned and bent himself in
front of the mirror.

'How beautifully they fit! How well they sit!' said everybody. 'What
material! What colours! It is a gorgeous suit!'

'They are waiting outside with the canopy which your Majesty is wont
to have borne over you in the procession,' announced the Master of the
Ceremonies.

'Look, I am ready,' said the Emperor. 'Doesn't it sit well!' And he
turned himself again to the mirror to see if his finery was on all
right.

The chamberlains who were used to carry the train put their hands near
the floor as if they were lifting up the train; then they did as if they
were holding something in the air. They would not have it noticed that
they could see nothing.

So the Emperor went along in the procession under the splendid canopy,
and all the people in the streets and at the windows said, 'How
matchless are the Emperor's new clothes! That train fastened to his
dress, how beautifully it hangs!'

No one wished it to be noticed that he could see nothing, for then he
would have been unfit for his office, or else very stupid. None of the
Emperor's clothes had met with such approval as these had.

'But he has nothing on!' said a little child at last.

'Just listen to the innocent child!' said the father, and each one
whispered to his neighbour what the child had said.

'But he has nothing on!' th